Speaking
Hale Samavati Speaking Introduction From a communicative, pragmatic view of the language classroom, listening and speaking skills are closely intertwined. Speaking in a second language (L2) has been considered the most challenging of the four skills given the fact that it involves a complex process of constructing meaning (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000). It involves a dynamic interrelation between speakers and hearers that results in their simultaneous interaction of producing and processing spoken discourse under time constraints. Therefore, the key role of the speaking skill in developing learners’ communicative competence has also become evident, since this skill requires learners to be in possession of knowledge about how to produce not only linguistically correct but also pragmatically appropriate utterances. Approaches to learning and teaching speaking ' ' ' Speaking within an environmentalist approach Up to the end of the 1960s, the field of language learning was influenced by environmentalist ideas that paid attention to the learning process as being conditioned by the external environment rather than by human internal mental processes. Learning to speak a language, in a similar way to any other type of learning, followed a stimulus- response-reinforcement pattern which involved constant practice and the formation of good habits (Burns and Joyce 1997). In this pattern, speakers were first exposed to linguistic input as a type of external ''stimulus and their response ''consisted of imitating and repeating such input. If this was done correctly, they received a positive ''reinforcement ''by other language users within their same environment. The continuous practice of this speech-pattern until good habits were formed resulted in learning how to speak. Consequently, it was assumed that speaking a language involved just repeating, imitating and memorizing the input that speakers were exposed to. These assumptions deriving from the environmentalist view of learning to speak gave rise to the Audiolingual teaching approach. This instructional method emphasized the importance of starting with the teaching of oral skills, rather than the written ones, by applying the fixed order of listening-speaking- reading-writing for each structure (Burns and Joyce 1997; Bygate 2001). Thus, learners were engaged in a series of activities, such as drills and substitution exercises, which focused on repeating grammatical structures and patterns through intense aural-oral practice. However, rather than fostering spoken interaction, this type of oral activities was simply a way of teaching pronunciation skills and grammatical accuracy (Bygate 2002). Consequently, although it can be assumed that this approach to learning and teaching speaking stressed the development of oral skills, speaking was merely considered as an effective medium for providing language input and facilitating memorization rather than as a discourse skill in its own right(Bygate 2001). In fact, significant aspects, such as the role that internal mental processes play when learning to produce new and more complex grammatical structures, were neglected under this view. The task of paying attention to those processes was the focus of study in the following years. Speaking within an innatist approach By the late 1960s, the previous view of learning to speak as a mechanical process consisting in the oral repetition of grammatical structures was challenged by Chomsky’s (1957, 1965) theory of language development. His assumption that children are born with an innate potential for language acquisition was the basis for the innatist approach to language learning. With in such an approach, it was claimed that regardless of the environment where speakers were to produce language, they had the internal faculty, or competence in Chomsky’s (1965) terms, to create and understand an infinite amount of discourse(Hughes 2002). Given this process, speakers’ role changed from merely receiving input and repeating it, as was the view in the environmentalist approach, to actively thinking how to produce language. In this type of methods, learners took on a more important role in that they were provided with opportunities to use the language more creatively and innovatively after having been taught the necessary grammatical rules. Although this approach recognized the relevance of speakers’ mental construction of the language system in order to be able to produce it, speaking was still considered to be an abstract process occurring in isolation. In fact, this innatist view of learning and teaching speaking did not take into account relevant aspects of language use in communication, such as the relationship between language and meaning (i.e., the functions of language) or the importance of the social context in which language is produced. Speaking within an interactionist approach The changes under this approach were thus characterized by an increasing recognition of the need to examine the complex cognitive processes involved in producing oral language from a more dynamic and interactive perspective. Additionally, such a perspective should also pay attention to the functions that producing spoken language fulfills, as well as accounting for the social and contextual factors that intervene in such speech production act. Drawing on the discipline of cognitive psychology, Levelt (1989) proposed a model of speech production whose basic assumption concerned the fact that messages were “planned.” Thus, in order to be able to produce oral language, speakers had to construct a plan on the basis of four major processes: 1) ''conceptualization, which involves the selection of the message content on the basis of the situational context and the particular purpose to be achieved; 2) formulation, which implies accessing, sequencing and choosing words and phrases to express the intended message appropriately; 3) articulation, which concerns the motor control of the articulatory organs to execute the planned message; and 4) monitoring, which allows speakers to actively identify and correct mistakes if necessary. In fact, speakers’'' automation of these key four processes was necessary because of the inherent difficulty involved in paying attention to all of them simultaneously while subject to the pressure of time restraints imposed during an ongoing conversation. The importance of the model developed by Levelt (1989) was also consistent with both functional (Halliday 1973, 1975, 1985) and pragmatic (Searle, Kiefer, and Bierwisch, 1980; Leech 1983; Levinson1983) views of language. producing spoken language was as elaborating a piece of discourse (i.e., a text) that carried out a communicative function and was affected by the context in which it was produced. In relation to the former type of context, the notion of ''genre ''was developed in order to describe the ways in which spoken language was used to achieve social purposes within a culture (Burns, Joyce, and Gollin 1996). Thus, genre was defined as “a purposeful, socially-constructed, communicative event” (Nunan 1991: 43) which resulted in oral texts with different communicative functions (i.e., a political speech, a church sermon, a casual conversation, etc.). Regarding the latter type of context, the notion of ''register ''was elaborated considering the fact that, within the broader cultural context, speakers also varied their language depending on the social situation in which they were interacting. Consequently, their choice of a particular register was based on the interaction of three contextual variables: 1) the ''field, which concerns the topic of communication; 2) the tenor, which refers to the relationship of the participants; and 3) the mode, which involves the channel of communication. More specifically, in relation to the functional view of language, the particular teaching method that was developed was the genre approach. This consisted in teaching learners “how texts within certain cultures have evolved particular discourse structures to fulfill particular social functions” (Burns and Joyce 1997: 48). As a result of the influence exerted by the discipline of cognitive psychology as well as the functional and pragmatic views of language, speaking was viewed as an interactive, social and contextualized communicative event. 'Teaching speaking within a communicative competence framework ' ' ' A strong background influence is associated with the work developed by Hymes (1971, 1972), who was the first to argue that Chomsky’s (1965) distinction between competence and performance did not pay attention to aspects of language in use and related issues of appropriateness of an utterance to a particular situation. Thus, he proposed the term ''communicative competence ''to account for those rules of language use in social context as well as the norms of appropriateness In such a construct, it can be assumed that the role of speaking is of paramount importance to facilitate the acquisition of communicative competence. Thus, the aim of this section is to show where the speaking skill fits into the bigger picture of the framework of communicative competence presented by Usó-Juan and Martínez-Flor (this volume). More important, it is described how the different components influence the development of this particular skill in order to increase learners’ communicative ability in the L2. Discourse competence Discourse competence involves speakers’ ability to use a variety of discourse features to achieve a unified spoken text given a particular purpose and the situational context where it is produced. Such discourse features refer to knowledge of discourse markers (e.g., well, oh, I see, okay), the management of various conversational rules (e.g., turn-taking mechanisms, how to open and close a conversation), cohesion and coherence, as well as formal schemata (e.g., knowledge of how different discourse types, or genres, are organized). Linguistic competence Linguistic competence consists of those elements of the linguistic system, such as phonology, grammar and vocabulary that allow speakers to produce linguistically acceptable utterances (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain 2000). Regarding phonological aspects, speakers need to possess knowledge of suprasegmental, or prosodic, features of the language such as rhythm, stress and intonation which refers to the ability to employ speech sounds for communication (Burns and Seidlhofer2002). Pragmatic competence Pragmatic competence involves speakers’ knowledge of the function or illocutionary force implied in the utterance they intend to produce as well as the contextual factors that affect the appropriateness of such an utterance Thus, speakers need to master two types of pragmatic knowledge: one dealing with pragmalinguistics and the other focusing on sociopragmatic aspects (Leech 1983; Thomas 1983). Pragmalinguistics addresses those linguistic resources that speakers can make use of to convey a particular communicative act. Sociopragmatics deals with speakers’ appropriate use of those linguistic forms according to the context where the particular utterance is produced, the specific roles the participants play within that contextual situation and the politeness variables of social distance, power and degree of imposition. Intercultural competence Intercultural competence refers to the knowledge of how to produce an appropriate spoken text within a particular sociocultural context. Thus, it involves knowledge of both cultural and non-verbal communication factors on the part of the speaker. Regarding the cultural factors, speakers need to be aware of the rules of behavior that exist in a particular community in order to avoid possible miscommunication. Knowledge of non-verbal means of communication (i.e., body language, facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) is also of paramount importance to communicate appropriately when producing a spoken text. Strategic competence This competence implies speakers’ knowledge of both learning and communication strategies. On the one hand, speakers need to possess learning strategies in order to successfully construct a given piece of spoken discourse. Speakers need to become competent in using strategies in order to overcome limitations due to a lack of competence in any of the other components integrating the proposed communicative competence framework. '''Areas of research that influence L2 speaking instruction ' ' A problem in learning language through oral communication ' ' ' The main difficulty with speech is the problem of “impermanence.” In contrast, written language can be re-read several times, with the reader able to take time to scan the whole, identify the topic, purpose and general direction, and sort out the comprehension difficulties. In contrast, speech is transitory and impermanent, so talk has to be produced bit by bit, with new meanings added in the light of meanings communicated so far, with each utterance being expressed while the listener waits. This becomes a central focus for any teaching of language use: formal knowledge and the ability to use, it needs to be incorporated into learners needs, and the only way to do this is through a range of relevant activities. There is however a new problem: seeing speech as goal driven means that it is fundamentally situated within particular contexts, and managed and produced for particular purposes. The problem this creates is that it is not clear how these conditions can be managed so as to promote learning. '''Features of oral discourse ' ' ' Repetition does however occur in spoken discourse. Indeed, the more we consider the matter, the more types of repetition there seem to be. This occurs in the two main dimensions of spoken discourse: the linguistic features at utterance level, and the discourse features. At discourse level, whole stretches of talk are often repeated, for perfectly good functional reasons. Greetings and small talk are commonly reused. Personal introductions are repeated again and again, to different people of course, but by definition, introductions do not often change. In other words, the recurrence of speech events brings with it the repetition of words and phrases. The fact of recurrence is reflected in much of the analysis of spoken discourse. The concept of discourse structure itself implies that there are features that recur in different stories, such as introductions, background information and initial situation, some complicating problem, causes and effects, solutions or outcomes, and evaluations (or conclusions) (Labov and Waletzsky 1967; Cameron 2001). There are connections between context and utterance. In certain contexts, special sequences of utterances tend to occur. Telephone conversations for instance start and end through a relatively small number of options for opening and closing utterances (see for instance Cameron 2001). So talk, then, involves a lot of repetition, both in content and in form. At both linguistic and discourse levels, this helps make oral communication manageable. 'Sociolinguistic dimensions of talk ' ' ' Sharing a social context then implies socially significant repetition both of content and the means of representing it. This is a very normal dimension of language use. Marking a discourse routine at various points with discourse moves expected by one’s interlocutor in a given context is likely to help predict where the talk is leading, to interpret what is being said, and to help the unfolding of the discourse. In other words, the structuring of discourse is built up of repetitions at all levels, which help both to reflect and to promote shared understanding and a degree of solidarity. Such repetition is not verbatim, but rather enables constructive adjustments and adaptations according to the speakers’ local needs. 'The psycholinguistics of speech processing and language development ' ' ' Repetition then occurs a lot in talk, and for good reason. The question is how repetition relates to learning. Repetition can be thought of as “constructive.” The recurring context provides a support for the introduction of new language, and for the increasing ability on the part of the child to manipulate basic language resources, and subsequently to add in further dramatic or descriptive refinements. Levelt, in various models of L1 oral interaction (his 1989 version works well for our purposes), proposes that in order to communicate speakers and listeners have to process language simultaneously in three main phases. First, they need to work on the conceptualisation of messages, in which meanings are planned and tracked; second, they operate a formulation phase, in which words are selected, sequenced, and inflected, or recognized; and thirdly, they work at articulatory production or acoustic perception. The whole is linked of course into the broader socio-cognitive context and purposes of speaker and listener. That is, learners may then find constructive repetition useful to the extent that it can allow them to do the following: 1. Conceptualization '' - Become familiar with the content of the talk - Organize the content of the talk for speech - Explore additional content to add ''2. Formulation '' - Identify and recall relevant vocabulary and grammar for managing the content of the talk and the interpersonal functions (such as referential markers, aspect, tense and modality) - Try out alternative vocabulary and grammatical resources - Monitor the grammatical features required by the vocabulary and syntax - Develop cohesion ''3. Output '' - Attend to speech production - Attend to interlocutors’ understanding The main reason why this may be an important mode of communicative development is associated with the fact that we typically conceptualize meanings ahead of our ability to express them, and with the way we manage linguistic redundancy. The term “linguistic redundancy” refers to the fact that language is made up both of linguistic features that are relatively meaningful and of features which are relatively redundant (i.e., unnecessary). Linguistic redundancy and our prior concern with meaning is reflected in the common observation that in our L1 we find it much easier to recall information we were told than to recall the precise words in which the information was told to us. '''Research into the impact of pedagogical tasks on oral language development ' ' ' How then might our conceptual ability and our awareness of linguistic redundancy affect the way speakers approach their learning? If we assume that our attention capacity is limited, then it follows that learners will often not be able to attend to all aspects of the speech production process, and that therefore they will have to prioritize what they will attend to. there is a clear likelihood that L2 learners will concentrate more on the content (conceptualization), and on the most meaningful forms of representation and finding some ways of saying it under the time pressures of the activity, and will devote less effort to monitoring for accuracy, or to self-correcting when necessary. If learners then ''repeat ''a speech activity, or at least significant elements of the activity, this will lead them to have to allocate less attention to the content, and enable them to allocate more attention to how the content is expressed, than they did first time around. It would be expected to shift from the content, to the form, with the result that grammatical details are gradually integrated into the whole. Now this view of repetition is different from the one traditionally associated with the teaching of speaking in L2 Audio-lingual approaches, for example, insisted on detailed accuracy in handling oral language through stimulus-response drills. The nineteenth century direct method similarly emphasized lexico-grammatical accuracy during the teacher’s oral face-to-face presentation of vocabulary and structures to the class. Accuracy was also highlighted through “scripted” talk, reading aloud and rote learning. For instance, oral skills practiced in grammar-translation were generally scripted, since they amounted to reading aloud exercises that had initially been done on paper. In the latter half of the twentieth century, situational dialogues tended to be learnt by heart, or memorized through substitution drill activities. Even some so-called humanistic methods seemed odd in respect of discursive repetition. The Silent Way focused narrowly on developing structural accuracy, one structure at a time; Suggestopedia aimed to promote rote learning of lengthy written texts. Meanwhile other approaches seemed to go in the opposite direction and avoid all repetition or focus on accuracy. Community language learning emphasized the spontaneity of rendering individual learners’ utterances into the target language whatever they might be. Communicative approaches tended to emphasize the spontaneous and creative speech of learners seeking to avoid rather than exploit repetition. In contrast with many approaches, this article argues then that meaningful constructive repetition is a useful element in oral language use and development. '''Constructive repetition in the classroom: whole class talk, and talk on tasks ' ' Cook (1997) in fact argues that repetition is intrinsic to a lot of language play and hence. And in addition, personal experience also suggests that learners are indeed quite keen to redo activities that they have already done once. It is a powerful basis for creative invention, provided that learners are encouraged to explore for themselves alternative ways of expressing their ideas. Task talk However as suggested here, our concern is not simply to stimulate talk, but to find ways of structuring it so that constructive repetition is encouraged. In fact, the structure of many familiar tasks already involves degrees of built-in repetition. These are grouped below into two sets, which I will here call “external repetition” and “internal repetition.” “External repetition” is repetition where the task requires students to repeat their talk to different students. “Internal repetition” is repetition which is encouraged by the demands of processing the input material and/or of preparing the intended task outcome. This type of repetition depends on pressure on the individual students to manage the information content, and to be able to present and/or explain the outcome to the teacher and class at the end of the groupwork. External repetition '' ''Survey tasks: any tasks which require students to circulate around their class gathering information from colleagues in order to compile a group profile, this is a simple example of in-built repetition. Repeated enactment of the same questions is likely to lead to improved accuracy and fluency.'' '' Interview tasks: interview tasks usually involve students in interviewing a limited number of people, seeking the same information from all of them. Card games: ''Various oral activities are structured around sets of cards, with one student holding a card, while the others have to guess or ask questions about the card, or respond to what the student holding the card says. Each student takes it in turns to draw the card to set off a round of talk. That is, a “round” is at first strategically structured, and useful structures are then re-used, as students build on their experience of previous rounds. '' Poster carousel: ''Working in pairs, students prepare a poster on a topic. Posters are posted on the walls around the room, with one student going off to visit and ask questions about the other posters, while the second student stays and hosts visitors from the other pairs. Each visitor will be expected to ask questions of the host, so that given that the posters define the content, each host will have repeated practice in talking about the same content, to different people, leading naturally to constructive repetition (see Lynch and Maclean2000, 2001). ''Pyramid (or “snowball”) tasks: ''Pyramid tasks are of course quite well known: students explore a topic initially in pairs, and then meet up with another pair to develop their account of the topic, the group of four then joining another group of four, to refine their ideas, leading to a plenary session. One of the purposes of this design is to encourage and support constructive repetition. ''Internal repetition '' ''Picture stories: ''Distributed picture stories (that is, activities where each member of a group can see a different picture from a story) typically first involve speakers in describing their pictures, so as to situate each picture in relation to the rest of the set. ''Picture and map differences tasks: ''Picture differences tasks typically involve managing three important types of information: location, identification, and description. For example the teacher might deliberately provide pictures for which students do not have all the vocabulary, leading them to have to negotiate understanding; or the pictures may contain a large number of distracting elements or ambiguous material. ''Prioritizing tasks: ''A number of tasks have been designed which give students a set of options to consider and prioritize in order of importance, preference, urgency, moral significance, and so on. Tasks like this are likely to encourage repeated use of expressions of opinion, and of justificatory comments, and depending on the design of the task can also give rise to repeated comparisons. ''Interpretation tasks: ''Interpretation tasks require students to consider the significance of a set of objects in terms of some specified context. An example is a “Things in pockets” task. ''Problem-solving tasks: ''By problem-solving tasks I am referring to tasks which pose conceptual or logical puzzles and which are deliberately intended to engage learners in talking through the nature of the problem, identifying potential explanations, and evaluating them before arriving at a preferred solution. ''Internal and external repetition: three-phase “jigsaw” tasks '' This type of task combines internal and external repetition. This is the kind of task developed by Geddes and Sturtridge (1979, 1982). Tasks designed in this way are a kind of “pyramid” task, that is, involve “external repetition” but each phase also pushes learners to clarify the information for themselves and for their colleagues, exploiting “internal repetition.” All these examples are intended to illustrate the power of the design of tasks to lead to constructive repetition. Whole-class talk It is between the teacher and class in plenary mode. - ''Plenary topics; when the teacher explores common recurring topics and themes with the class as a whole. - Pre- and post-task talk; the most important type of context for constructive repetition is before or after specific classroom activities, exercises or tasks. Another way of promoting constructive repetition through tasks is for the teacher to do an example task with the whole class prior to letting them work in pairs. - Classroom management; occurs around classroom management and procedures. Questions as strategies to encourage speaking in content-and-language-integrated classrooms Questions in whole-class interaction ' ' ' When classes of teachers and students are working on “content,” the typical three-step “teaching exchange” is a frequent occurrence and probably always will be (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975; Mehan 1979; Wells 1993): initiation, response and, feedback. Fundamental teaching tools come in different shapes and sizes and can be distinguished according to their purpose, form and content (Thompson 1997). -''Display Questions (known-answer questions); prompt someone to display whether they also possess a certain knowledge item that the questioner has. '' -Referential Questions (communicative questions);'' If one looks at questions in terms of their purpose one may distinguish between those that are directed towards something that is truly new to the questioner Classification according to form - Yes/No-questions(close question) '' - ''Wh-questions (open questions) '' '' '' A third way of looking at questions is to consider their content, distinguishing between different kinds of information that may be sought by the questioner. '' - Questions for Facts (outside or personal) '' ''- Questions for Opinions '' ''- Questions for Reasons or Explanations '' '''How does turn-taking work? ' ' ' Early work tried to pin down the rules of turn-taking while later analyses moved towards quantitatively based research, looking for statistically meaningful patterns in how speakers appear to signal that it is time for another speaker to speak. -The idea of the Transition Relevance Point (TRP); which good conversationalists must monitor a speaker’s utterance for and time the start of their contribution to the micro-second. -What signals do speakers send out when a transition relevance point is coming up? Many studies have suggested that prosody plays a central role in turntaking (Wells and Macfarlane 1998). That is to say, it is the acoustic information coming from the speaker in terms of pitch, intonation, loudness and rhythm which, fundamentally, carries the cue to the other speaker of whether it is appropriate for them to take over. -Introduce the learner to some facts about turn-taking 'Teaching speaking: A text-based syllabus approach ' ' ' 'What is a text-based syllabus? ' ' ' Texts are units of discourse – or flows of language functioning in the numerous contexts that make up a culture (McCarthy, Mathiessen, and Slade 2002). Two central ideas in a text-based syllabus approach are: 1) how language is used in social contexts; and 2) how it is structured in relation to those contexts. 'Spoken genres ' ' ' Genre refers to the prototypical ways that different kinds of texts demonstrate common structures and language features. Three key concepts of genre: 1. Any genre pertains to a particular culture and its social institutions (hence “social” process). 2. Social processes are purposeful (hence “goal-oriented”). 3. It usually takes a number of steps to achieve one’s purpose (hence a “staged” process). Different kind of genres: - Narrative (facing and resolving a problematic experience) - Anecdote (experiencing a remarkable event) - Exemplum (highlighting a moral point) - Recount (experiencing a sequence of events) 'Implications for teaching speaking ' A text-based syllabus approach attempts to expose learners to activities that work towards ways of understanding and participating in authentic interactions. Below, I set out briefly a number of starting points for teachers wishing to plan a text-based syllabus approach. ' - ''The language event; the focus points for these units can be drawn from situations identified and mapped jointly by teachers and learners or from course book segments or syllabus specifications which are the current focus of teaching and learning. - Starting with topics, '' - ''Starting with texts, - Preparation activities, '' - Discourse activities;'' Activities aim to focus attention on how speakers begin, progress and end interactions, take up their roles as speakers and listeners, and use specific discourse strategies and markers to maintain the interaction - Language activities; the focus here is primarily on form - Interaction activities